Why is it that lately it’s annoying me more than usual that my father flat out ignores me when I’m talking? It’s not as if this is a new occurence. I’ll be talking to my mother, he decides he has something to say, so he just talks. Or he’ll be talking to me and I try to make a point or offer a suggestion or a reinforcement to his position, and he completely ignores it, or begins talking over me. Nothing new. Lately though, it just bugs me and I’ve been retaliating.

This morning he came marching in talking about something that happened at the city council meeting. Mom doesn’t care about anything that happens in local politics. He talks about this constantly, doesn’t matter she doesn’t care. He cares. That’s all that matters. Mom is too polite to tell him she wishes he would shut up. I’m there, so Mom walks out. He keeps talking to me. I tried making a point. It was too good of a point in opposition to Dad’s view. He got a bit annoyed, was able to backtrack though and change gears. Something else about the council meeting, about all that’s done for the youth, and something about young adults or adults, and I said, “Well there isn’t anything for them to do.” He quickly dismissed this since it wasn’t what he wanted to talk about and said, “I’ve always said, adults should be able to find something to do.” and I said, “Just like a politician. You would make a great one. What about the skate park and the bike thing. Kids should be able to go play in their yards. If anyone should just be able to find something to do it should be them.” But he’d already dismissed me and started talking about something else,.

Soooo, he’s still talking about whatever and I want to make a point and I even say to him, “Listen to me, I’m going to agree with you,” and when I start making my point he starts talking over me so I say, and I say it in normal conversational tones, not in an undertone or under my breath, but just like I was still talking to him, “OK, you don’t listen to me, then I’m not going to listen to you.” and I went about what I was doing, Dad talking happily away. Then when he finished I kept on doing what I was doing and didn’t respond. Finally he asked, “Are you mad?” and I said, “Didn’t you hear me? I said that if you aren’t going to listen to me, I’m not listening to you.” and left the room.

The reason I’m telling this story is this has been my whole life. A lot of BDD is low self-esteem. Hard to have good self-esteem when even your parents ignore you.

I have a cousin who will talk, talk, talk at you and talk at you and talk at you. Non-stop. He’ll follow you around as you try to leave, talking non-stop. He’s got friends and at work he sees people all day and they come by and hang out with him, so I don’t know that  it’s all about him being lonely. So I don’t know what it is other than he’s incredibly selfish. But I’m afraid of being like him. That I’ll just follow people around talking because I want somebody to talk to.

But I don’t want to be like my Dad. Talking over people and ignoring what they have to say. Making them feel insignificant.

THings have been okay lately. I’m not going to go into any of the bad things. I’ve been avoiding spending a lot of time looking at myself or dwelling on anything, such as what does it mean that practically no one has commented on the fact that I cut almost three inches off my hair and had very blonde highlights put in it? The only comments came from my mother who said: the ends needed to be cut and something about oh now she sees a streak. The other comment was from a friend who said my hair looked redder. Usually when no comments are made about a change that I think is so obvious, I take it to mean the change is terrible and people are not mentioning it hoping I won’t ask.

I went to a ren faire this weekend with friends. Most of us partially dressed up in pirate-y gear. I wore a shirt I made with massively full sleeves that I put a cuff on, and they are nice and ruffled. Three of us love dressing up and were coming up with our wenchley persona since one has decided she has to come up with a new pirate persona and maybe playing pirate wench once in awhile is fun. I have a persona known as Madame and I will be making “her” a to die for jacket. which may never get done since I obsess over the details and things being perfect, then I realize once it goes on me it will not be perfect, it will be ridiculous and I have some sort of breakdown and never finish it because if I won’t wear it no one can.

Yeah, I was trying not to get into the poor pitiful me stuff.

But I did have fun at the fair. Even walked around alone for awhile, made eye contact with strangers, talked to some costumers, and had fun.

I had one grumpy day at work and considering this is Tuesday I guess that isn’t so hot. I didn’t have the shop open today. Found excuses other than it’s simply too damn hot to not go in. Yesterday this woman was really a bitch. I just ignored her. She asked the price of something. It’s this piece from the mid 1800s, very ornate, hand-carved, original finish, quite impressive, and when I told her the price, which is quite reasonable, she said something like ‘that’s just ridiculous’ or ‘oh come on now, don’t be ridiculous’, and in a really snotty tone too. So I just walked off, quit having anything to do with her and ignored her for the rest of the time she was in the shop. Sometimes when people are like that I get nasty right back at them. I’ll either say, wow, is that how you bargain? You must get great deals. Or I’ll wave them off toward the cheaper items and say “Go over there. Nothing over $150. That’s more in your line. Nothing hand-made or hand carved over there.” After looking at everything else she did go back to that big piece and start looking at it again, probably expecting me to come over and try to negotiate on the price but I’ve decided she can’t have it for any price.

I did lose weight! Yay! I was a little pissed off at the end of last week that I’d eaten so little and kept so busy and lost nothing, but today I got on the scale and it was 171. When I first started this blog and got on the scale it was 174. Last week it was still 174. Hopefully next week it will be below 170. The highest it’s been this year was 178. Probably higher I just refused to get on the scale because thinking about it getting any higher was like years ago when I was at my heaviest. I remember getting on the sale one day and it said 198 and I said no freaking way would I get on the scale again because I knew I’d gained weight and I did not want to see the scale say 200+ . So I just avoided it for months until I finally started exercising like mad and knew I’d lost significant amount of weight. But of course no one noticed and I honestly can’t tell the difference between what I looked like then and what I look like now.

This weekend I dropped by a restaurant because a friend called to say she was there bugging another friend who works there. The one who didn’t work there was sitting at the bar eating. The other was behind the bar talking to her. The waiter, who was too young for me, but really cute, would just sort of hover in the background, kept looking at me. I couldn’t decide if it was for good or bad reasons. His expression didn’t give anything away. And for once I didn’t convince myself he was staring at me because I’m a freak. He probably thought I was the one girl’s mother.

Self-fulfilling prophecy… I knew things would not be so good once my parents came back home. NOt just them being here, I mean, not just them making things worse, but because of them being home I wouldn’t be able to stay in all the time and would have to go out.

I was determined to make the most of it, went out to see friends more, have made plans to do things. SC, MJ and I are going to the Georgia RenFaire Sunday with JG and her daughters. SC, MJ and I will sort of dress up. Not in our full wenchly garb, but pirate shirts and a wee bit sexy. I’m already doubting it. Wishing I hadn’t been the one to instigate this plan.

Last night SC, MJ and I went out and did a little shopping. We were having fun in the fabric store, then on to a Party City, back where the costumes are, just trying on hats and goofing off. I went around an aisle, not realizing there was a full length mirror on a wall, because there was a lot of junk on the wall, and I got a long look at myself. First there was a glance and I thought I was seeing into the rest of the shop and I just thought there was some lady passing by the entryway as I was, then I realized it was me and I was like, damnit, I will not let this ruin my evening. I kept having to push my image out of my head. Otherwise I would have ruined the girls evening by insisting we go home then. how to explain to them that Oh, I have to go home now because I realized that I was mistaken that I thought i looked kind of nice today. That in fact I look like a dumpy middle aged woman with a horse-face, and I should be embarrassed that I’m hanging out with two 21 year old girls and acting like I’m your friend. So we have to go home now.

And until we went to IHOP last night I’ve hardly eaten all week and I doubt I’ve lost any weight.

Wednesday at lunch I just waited for my mom to make this comment that she always does. Normally I would have ordered the fried chicken wings. This day I didn’t. I got mac and cheese, black eyed peas, and okra. I ate less than half of each thing on my plate. I ate part of a wing because my Dad got a plate of them. Then finally the moment came when my mom looked at all our plates, shook her head, sighed, and said, “I won’t be making dinner. You’re on your own, not that I can imagine anyone being hungry after eating all that.” I ate less than a cup of food, probably slightly over half a cup of food, and she was making me feel like I’d just stuffed my face with fried fat wrapped in bacon and washed down with a milk shake made with heavy cream. And for break fast what did I have? My Dad had brought home breakfast and in it was a ham and cheese croissant. I cut off one tip of the croissant and ate that. In the 48 hours prior to it this I’d eaten two chicken pot pies, and drunk a cup of milk in the middle of the night when I couldn’t go to sleep and decided it was because my stomach was weird.

I did eat a good meal at Ihop last night. We all ordered the same thing. It was a big breakfast with pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon and eggs. I ate part of one egg, half the pancakes, some of the hashbrowns, and most of a piece of bacon. MJ kept looking at my plate and I remember thinking that she must have thought I was lying about not having really eaten anything that day other than two bites for breakfast, two bites of a banana, and a sandwich made with a piece of bread, a little bit of peanut butter and jelly, and that was all. Today I actually had an appetite. We had fried fish for lunch and I had some grits for lunch and ate a healthy portion for dinner. So tomorrow when I get on the scale and haven’t lost weight I’ll blame it on eating today.

But seriously, you’d think the way I hardly ate this week I could have lost something. I’ve got to start walking a lot and exercising a lot too. I can’t go on being fat. I got my hair highlighted today and couldn’t stand looking in the mirror.

I’m waiting for someone to ask my why I did this to my hair.

My good week is almost over. There was this moment where I thought everyone was just messing with me and it was really Friday and not Thursday. I was coming back from a trip to the junk store when I made the last turn towards home and saw people’s trash cans were already out on the street. Trash is picked up on Friday. This really started to worry me. But it’s Thursday. Although, when I first got up I thought it was Saturday and I was thinking, wow, I stopped taking Elavil and that’s supposed to cause drowsiness, and started taking Zanaflex instead. I thought I must have had a really really strong reaction to the muscle relaxent or maybe it reacted weirdly to Topamax.

Anyhoo, I realized why I’d had such a good week, all things considered… I’ve hardly gone out, had very few interactions with other people. Trips to the convenience store and one to Dollar General hardly count as interacting with other people. I did go to Books-A-Million, but spoke to no one there and made eye contact with no one.

So I’ve been very happy this week. I haven’t had to deal with anyone but myself.

I was watching The Invasion the other night and there’s a scene where Kidman’s character is going to her office. There’s an SUV next to her and everyone in it is staring at her. Then crossing the street there are many people just standing there, staring at her. When she gets to the opposite side of the street and turns around, noticing the people looking at her, I said to the television, “I know how you feel.”  It’s a part of BDD, thinking everyone is staring at you.

And sometimes people are staring at me, and I don’t know why. In my head I just imagine the worst, but it’s not always like that. Sometimes I’m in an exceptionally good mood, feeling cocky even and I don’t mind it when I’m bouncing through a store and I realize everyone I look at is already looking at me. Other times though it makes me just want to turn around and run out. And I know I’m not always imagining it.

I was at lunch with my family. Parents, brother, his wife and kids, and I realized this woman at another table was staring at me. She was at a table with three other people, sitting a bit sideways in her seat so she could lean her back against this dividing halfwall rather than the back of her chair, I suppose to see everyone at her table better. I don’t know. I’m not overly fond of people who sit sideways like that while people are still eating. Save it for afterwards when everyone’s just having drinks and conversing. Whatever. This woman was staring at me. I told myself at first it was my imagination. I just thought she was staring at me and I was feeling self-concious because I realized I’d gone out without my glasses. I think they camouflage the shadows and discoloration under my eyes a little bit. Didn’t matter. I was with the family. Everything was ok. I told myself she was not staring at me. But I kept having to look that way because my sister-in-law and youngest niece were down at that end of the table and they were more entertaining.

The lady was definitely staring at me. Usually when someone is staring at me like that I just make eye contact with them. What happens is they’ll either smile and look away or they frown and look away. Whichever, they realize they’ve been caught staring and they look away. This woman did not look away. She was caught staring and she didn’t give a damn. She even got a little pissy about it. Without breaking eye contact with me, she said something to the man next to her. He turned and looked at me. Then the other couple turned to look at me. Finally, I think someone told her to stop it and she got annoyed enough with them to look away. But really, what was that woman’s deal? Why did she have to stare at me? Why couldn’t she stop staring? Was I such a train wreck she couldn’t look away? It was like she would be damned if she was going to back down to something like me, when she was clearly wrong for staring at me in the first place.

I have three bags of clothes to take to some charity drop-off. They have to go tonight. Mom’s maid comes tomorrow and I’ve drug them out into the hall. I don’t want them back in my room. All I have to do is take them out to the boxes in the wal-mart parking lot. No big deal. But I’m so concerned about someone being out, that instead I will probably just take them down to my building and put them in the back and worry about them later. I won’t go to the other charity place because I will have to go inside and tell someone I’m bringing it in instead of just dropping it off somewhere.

Next week I won’t be on my own anymore. I can’t just read books, or write them. I got the whole storyline sketched out for one. If I’m at home I’ll be interrupted every five minutes. [Once I was interrupted so frequently I was unable to watch a ten second video. Seriously. I would start the video and be interrupted before a few seconds had played. See to what was wanted of me. Go back to the video. Have to stop it again. Start it over. On and on until I finally gave up. A ten second video!] It will be back to my every day existence of being judged by other people and being found lacking. Letting them down. Failing them. It’s not enough I fail myself. I wake up every day to failure and end each day with disappointment, and that’s when I’m alone. But next week I get to share it with others.

I think maybe I’ll try some of the techniques they give in CBT. Trying to overlook my defects. Find something physically that’s not disappointing.

Rarely does anything go as planned for me. So I’m really not surprised my parents are only going to be gone until Sunday or Monday, rather than for two weeks as they told me. I don’t think they ever intended to be gone that long, which makes me wonder why they kept insisting they would be gone that long.

Still I should be able to manage a two pound weight loss this week, even if it is only ‘water weight’. Although I didn’t do well yesterday. Today I feel like I don’t even deserve to be hungry.

I would like to not be so obsessed about myself. The one thing I hate the most and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s madness, I know. I wake up thinking about how much worse the wrinkles will be on my face because of the way I’ve slept, my stomach, the flab. Even just lying in bed, alone, no one can see me, I find myself covering my neck, spreading my hand and pushing back the skin to give myself a better chin, stronger jawline. I’m all alone. Who’s going to see? But I do it anyway.

I haven’t really been anywhere since my parents left. Today I’m going to set myself two tasks. I’ll go to my shop awhile and open up, return a phone call or two, and I’ll either go to the pharmacy or do some shopping for the house. This is all gearing up to I have some clothes I need to take to either the thrift shop or the drop off which has to be done tomorrow at the latest. So two things I have to make myself do today to get out of the house. Things I can’t do… eat any sweets,.

Oh, but in good news, I had a little white cyst next to my eye, been there for months, driven me crazy. It was very very white and at the corner of my eye which is always discolored just making something white stand out more, and it finally went away. Yippeeee! One less thing to drive me crazy.

Yesterday on the Montel Williams show the discussion was Body Dysmorphic Disorder. There were three very brave guests. I couldn’t have gone on that show. To sit there on display with everyone looking at me. To try to face a mirror…

The doctor who was on the show mentioned two types of people “Checker” and “Avoiders”. This refers to looking at one’s own reflection. I am an Avoider. I avoid seeing my reflection as much as possible. It can depress me, ruin my whole day, to see myself. I have a problem with morphing. My image changes and I never know what I’ll see when I look in the mirror. Lately I’ve noticed that the lower portion of my face, from my cheekbones down has become quite wide and flat. My nose is now much narrower at the bridge between my eyes than it is at the end. This could all change tomorrow. A Checker spends a lot of time in the mirror. They can get lost in their reflections, making sure everything is perfect, nothing is out of place, wanting to change what they see and obsessing over it.

The doctor had them look at themselves objectively. To state objective facts about themselves; My hair is long and brown. My eyebrows are an inch apart. My nose is small. That sort of thing.  I tried doing that this morning. I get my hair is long and stringy. My eyes are round. There are shadows under my eyes. My nose is big. My lips are thing. There are scars by my mouth. My neck is fat. My breasts are large and pendulous. My stomach is huge. And on and on down to my feet.

I really hated a tactic the doctor was using, which was insulting them outrageously so that they would see how ridiculous it was. Such as I can’t believe how those people had to sit there and look at someone as ugly as you. They all got up and walked out they were so sick of looking at you. I wouldn’t have made it to that point. I would have been so uncomfortable at catching glimpses of myself in the monitor, that by the time they brought the mirror out I would have just broken down and started crying.

I quit a job because the furniture was rearranged and there was nothing between me and a very large full length mirror about thirty feet away. It was parallel to the desk I had to sit at sometimes and couldn’t be avoided and it was just upsetting me so much because I look even fatter sitting down and I hate my profile so much.

I am a little concerned that because all three guests were Checkers it does make people with BDD look incredibly vain.

I was lying in bed this morning, very late this morning… I had a terrible migraine when I got home and finally had to give up and take a zomig, so it was close to ten when I finally rolled out of bed… so right, I was lying in bed this morning thinking about what I would make for breakfast. I narrowed the choice down between blueberry muffins or coffee cake. Oooh, I could make the coffee cake like muffins. I told myself both of these could be saved for breakfast throughout the week.

Yeah, right, like I wouldn’t eat half of either today and the rest tomorrow. Thousands of calories to add to my growing problem known as my fat body.

NO! I can’t keep doing this to myself. I have two weeks to myself. Two weeks when I can’t blame other people for the food options I’m given. Even if my parents are only gone a week, that’s a week I can do something.

I hopped on the scale. I am at 174. Surprise! Somewhere in the last two weeks I’ve lost four pounds. Yay! Now let’s see how much more I can lose. I need to lose 20 more before I get to where I was when I needed to lose thirty. My lowest weight in the last few years was around 154 then everything started ballooning up again.  I’m going to stock up on fruits and vegetables, toss out the chips. I’ve made iced tea to drink instead of diet soda because I feel ridiculous drinking diet soda as if that makes up for all the other calories and the carbonation and everything just causes bloating.

Instead of giving myself huge goals that are so far out of reach, today I will give myself small goals.

I want to lose 2 pounds this week. I can do this. I know I can!

I have a blouse that looks really good on me, but it’s too tight across the bust. I want to be able to button it and it not gap across the bust.

A longer term goal is that when I wear my jeans they aren’t tight around my thighs. I’ve gotten to where I need those relaxed thigh jeans again and as I don’t have the money to buy any and I don’t want to buy any, I’m getting off my fat ass and doing something about it.

So I will restrict my calories and eat healthy foods. I will walk every day, even if it’s just once up and down the drive way.

And I’m also going to do all my laundry and get rid of the clothes that don’t fit and wouldn’t look good even if they did fit. Some charity is about to get a windfall in the clothing department. I will have more clothes to get rid of than to keep. There are some jeans I bought when I was a size ten, they are size 8, that I will keep. They are my long term goals. Those and two dresses. I have a box of dresses upstairs that are size 12. Hope to wear those some day without embarassment.

I must exercise. My midsection is huge. I’m a potato with legs, arms, and an odd head.

Maybe, if I’m feeling brave I’ll put up some pictures, show what I go through when getting ready to go out. How I take pictures over and over, to see if anything is improving and to see how I look. Sometimes I get lucky and get a photo I think looks good and I try to keep that in mind throughout the night.

I’m going to the movies with a friend tonight. It’s only a dollar and I have gas in my car. Usually she comes down to see me and we load up on movies and junk food [milk and cookie dough] and spend all night watching movies at my shop. She lives with her two children and her parents and comes here to escape.

Recently she’d been out with some of her other friends, two of whom have had face lifts, one recent. They are older than her and from the way they talked, it seems she’ll soon be due for the obligatory face lift at age 45. That’s just how these women are. You reach 45, you should at least be considering a face lift.

I know exactly what surgery I want. I really want a neck lift. I’ve looked in to them, know about how much they would cost. I’ve even been researching the plastic surgeons. It’s futile. I don’t have the money and even if I did couldn’t justify it, but I would feel much better about my appearance if my neck was firm giving me a better profile. Next on the list would be a breast lift. A relationship is out of the question for me. First, I’m too fat. Second, even if I do lost fifty pounds, my breasts will be even saggier than they are now and no one is going to see these breasts until after a breast lift. I know I scar easily and will have scars from it, but I’d rather have scarred breasts than saggy ones. Until then, no relationships for me.

I really got off the topic. I’m not sure what we’ll see. We were thinking The Bucket List. As far as we know it could be out on video, but $1 is cheaper than renting it so why not. I need to go up early and swing by the bookstore so I can look through some price guides. I’ve got some pieces to sell on E-bay. I really need things to sell well on E-bay since I have just $47 in the checking account and the pity money my dad gave me before going out of town.

The friend I’m going out with tonight is quite attractive. I’ll change clothes half a dozen times before settling on something, realizing there’s no point in even making an effort because no one’s really going to look at me when I’m with her. And that’s kind of a nice thought. Takes the pressure of. No one is going to look at me when I’m with her. Besides, we’ll be in the movies. Nice and dark and just us scarfing down popcorn and washing it down with diet soda!

Tomorrow my parents are going out of town. I am very anxious about this. I worry that something might prevent them from going. I need to spend some time alone.  I have been on the verge of tears and I can’t cry, not with them around. I just need to break down and sob rather than sit here alone, fighting back the tears lest they get out of control and I be heard from another room or worse yet, my mother just happens to come to the door to bother me about something and wants to know why I’m crying.

There’s never a good enough excuse. I never have a good enough reason to cry.

So tomorrow they’re going to the beach and when they leave I’m going to cry. And then I should be happy for awhile.

And no one’s bothered to buy groceries in awhile and I only have $47 in my checking account which I will need for my copay at the neurologist’s next week [unless I've totally screwed up and missed the appointment] and to buy catfood and possibly dogfood. And this is a good thing because with dwindling food supplies in the house one would think I could maybe possibly manage to lose some weight, right?

I don’t think anyone will ever read this, nor will anyone care. I’m only doing this because I need a place to get it all out, some place where I can kid myself that someone out there is concerned or maybe understands. Writing in a paper journal has its sad moments. It’s harder to do away with. It is evidence if it is found.

This is just my place to go because I have nowhere else.

Sooner or later I will make the About Me page. Here are some bits and pieces of me…

I am 38 years old. I live with my parents. I don’t have a job. I own a business, but it doesn’t do well. I have chronic migraines and for several months had almost non-stop pain from them, but no one cared. I now take three different types of medicine to help prevent them, and a fourth to help knock them out when that doesn’t work, and will probably need my dosage increased on one, and I still have migraines every day. And no one cares and I wish one person in my family would appreciate the fact that I managed to hold down a job for two years until the pain got so the only way to make it stop was to keep moving and I felt like I was going insane. I wish my family would understand that being in pain is not some kind of weakness or something to be ashamed of and I think I do a very good job of not showing it. I wish that someone would understand that just because I don’t lie around crying and holding my head and whining, doesn’t mean I’m not hurting.

I have body dismorphic disorder. For some people they’re only concerned with one defect, for me, the defect starts at my scalp and goes to the soles of my feet. It also goes inside me. All the way through. I don’t know what I’ll see when I look in the mirror. To make it worse I gained a lot of weight, then I lost a lot, and gained 25 pounds back. So I’m not just ugly, I’m fat too.

Apparently I also have a rotten personality, am cynical, don’t trust anyone, am unpleasant, through in a lot of nasty adjectives and that would describe me. It seems all I do is sit around and criticize everything and everyone. And all this time I thought I was a pretty nice person.

Funny to find out you’re as ugly on the inside as you are on the outside.

No big surprise I am majorly depressed. I try to hide that too. Depression is just another thing to be ashamed of. I have no reason to be depressed. AFter all, I live with my parents, right, and don’t have to work a full time job.

But I’m 38 years old and live with my parents and have to tell them where I’m going and who I’m going with. I can’t just get in my car and go for a ride. I have to have a reason.

And even though I’m the youngest in the family you can bet I’m to blame for everyone else’s bad habits and problems. Just stay tuned and I’ll explain it all.

If you’re wondering why you should keep reading, my number one reason is that you’ll feel better about yourself knowing you haven’t let your life get as messed up as I have. You at least have a life.

I’ve always been afraid of zombies. I may not be dead, but I’m a zombie.